A Special Note to the Sojourners Crowd

Well, we've had our discussions about budgets as moral documents and now have reached a budget deal that went right up to the brink of a government shutdown.

To those friends of mine who are also Christians, but identify more with the left than the right, I have a question for you:  Just exactly what hill was it the Democrats decided they wanted to die on in this battle?  Where did they draw the line and say, "This far and no further!"

It turns out their one adamantine point of no compromise was . . . funding Planned Parenthood.  Wow, that's a real Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment.  Gets you right in the old ticker.

I suspect Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are feeling a little uncomfortable as they review the bidding.

Not that this should come as a surprise.  How many Democrat figures have been down this path and learned that they have to make a choice?  Ted Kennedy was pro-life and was forced by his party's realities to change.  Jesse Jackson was pro-life.  Same result.  Ditto for one Albert Gore.

There is one orthodoxy in the party of the left that will not brook disagreement.  Bob Casey the elder knew it.  And Ramesh Ponnuru wrote a book about it.

 

Comments

[Graham]

I went through an Evangelical left phase in college and attempted to be a pro-life Democrat until recently. I have really felt betrayed that President Obama would say, for example, that he was personally against gay marriage on the stump, but then undermine traditional marriage in several ways in his first year in office. On the abortion question, I thought that I could dissent from Democratic party orthodoxy on this one like a Bob Casey, and the Obama campaign really attempted to reach out to pro-life Democrats in 2008, but as the health care fight went on, I realized that nobody liked pro-life democrats and that people like representatives Bart Stupak and Joseph Cao were just being used for cover. I don't think that there are any principles that democrats aren't willing to give up in order to keep power, and I'm tired of being used.

[Gentillylace]

I am a practicing Catholic who is against abortion (except to save the life of the mother) and the death penalty. I am also a pacifist. In economic questions, I am pretty far to the left: in social issues, I am fairly conservative. I am planning to let my membership in the Democratic Socialists of America lapse because the party platform is in favor of abortion rights. I agree with Graham that the Obama campaign did attempt to reach pro-life Democrats in 2008, and that was one reason why I voted for Obama. Like Graham, I realized that the Democratic bigwigs were going to stick with abortion rights no matter what. But I am so much a woman of the left to my marrow -- at least when it comes to economic and national defense issues -- that voting for a Republican would go against my convictions.

[Christopher Hathaway]

How anyone can claim to be pro-life and vote Democrat is beyond me. It obviously cannot be an issue of any great priority. Other things are more important for the "pro-life" democratic crowd. Usually I find it is some idolatry of money our utopian socialist delusions. Most Christians on the left that I have talked to are simply unwilling to admit that pro-life Republican politicians are really sincere. They brandish a cyinicism about politics on this issue that keeps them from having to translate their purported beliefs into action.

[Bob Srigley]

I feel a certain sympathy for Gentillylace. As one who came of age in the counter-culture of the 60's I remember the strange feeling I had, along with my wife, the first time I voted for a Republican. (Ronald Reagan in '80) We looked at each other and said, "I can't believe we're doing this."

Hopefully without sounding condescending, it can take some time to move out from the errors of liberalism -- errors not of sentiment or intention, but of attempting to graft virtues onto an errant stock. There are many books which could be helpful, but one I like to recommend is "Witness" by Whittaker Chambers. It's an old one, but usually available from Public Libraries.

For now, and pertinent to the abortion issue, here is a very powerful quote:

“One of the pillars of Catholic thought is this: Don’t deliberately kill the innocent, and don’t collude in allowing it. We sin if we support candidates because they support a false ‘right’ to abortion. We sin if we support pro-choice candidates without a truly proportionate reason for doing so–that is a reason grave enough to outweigh our obligation to end the killing of the unborn. And what would such a ‘proportionate’ reason look like? It would be a reason we could, with an honest heart, expect the unborn victims of abortion to accept when we meet them and need to explain our actions–as we someday will.” Bishop Charles Chaput from Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life

[Gentillylace]

The first time that I voted was in 1984, and my parents were not part of the 1960s counter-culture. I believe that pro-life Republican politicians are sincere about their pro-life sympathies, but I disagree so much with their small-government and pro-national defense stance that I cannot in good reason vote for them. I suppose I am a utopian socialist :-)

In the 2010 elections, I voted a blank ballot when it came to partisan posts (but voted for ballot propositions), and I suspect I will be doing that in 2012. When I told my Catholic pastor about that, he told me in so many words that that was silly: that I had to look at the totality of the issues. (He is very much in favor of the seamless garment/consistent life theory that Cardinal Bernardin espoused.) But abortion is so important that one cannot take it as just one more issue!

[Christopher Hathaway]

Gentillylace,
How in all you years of voting have you not come to realize that the big government you must obviously support cannot do so without the means of deadly force to enforce both its laws and its support through taxation? National defense is merely an extension of the state's internal force to defend its existence.

I can respect pacifism as long as it doesn't try to have it both ways and pretend that partcipation in government doesn't make one complict with an implicit threat to do bodily harm to those who persist in resisting the lawful will of the state.

But you are right to ignore your silly pastor's advice. The "seamless garment" idea is one of the more pernicious examples of philosophical foolishness to come out of the American Catholic church in recent decades. Any priest or bishop who doesn't recognize that killing an innocent is intrinsically evil while killing a murderer isn't doesn't have the moral sense to tell north from south.

[Hunter Baker]

I want to speak up on the point I was making. By no means do I think that those with more left-wing sensibilities need to give up their convictions and enthusiastically vote GOP. Instead, I DO think they should withdraw their support for the Democrats until they become far more responsive to pro-life concerns.

[MCModerator]

Comment deleted for use of obscene language.

[CKG]

I suppose that most of my friends would probably think of me as a Republican, or at least some degree of right-wing sympathizer. And to the extent that my thoughts and sympathies are conservative, they might be right. But I have given up on self-identifying as a Republican - there are too many wings of the party that I can't go along with (the Libertarians, and what I call the 'Country Club Wing', to name two). And for all the happy pro-life rhetoric written into various party platforms, there are an awful lot of Republicans who can't keep from looking like they've swallowed an insect when the topic arises.

But, as long as the Democrats are committed to abortion as the Hill They're Going to Die On (wonderful turn of phrase, Mr. Baker), I will never vote for a Democrat, for any office more significant than Drain Commissioner.

[MargaretD]

Let us not so lightly dismiss the sway of the drain commissioner. A prolifer might enact that the drains can't be used for disposal of babies.

[MCModerator]

Comment deleted for unacceptable content. Keep the discussion civil.

[this]

How many Democrat figures have been down this path and learned that they have to make a choice? Ted Kennedy was pro-life and was forced by his party's realities to change. Jesse Jackson was pro-life. Same result. Ditto for one Albert Gore.

OK, I'm gradually approaching civility on this one. Can anyone possibly agree with this who knows anything about the three politicians mentioned?

[Christopher Hathaway]

Can anyone possibly agree with this who knows anything about the three politicians mentioned?

I gather that your inplication is that neither Kenendy, Jackson nor Gore were truly pro-life to begin with and that thye merely posed as such for political expediency until it was no longer expedient. If that is your point I don't think it is substantially in disagreement with the points above. Politicians who have no fixed values will always shift according to the political winds. The fact that Kennedy, et al, shifted from a pro-life position to a pro-abortion one only shows the nature of the political winds in their party.

[Mychael Margott]

The "seamless garment" idea is one of the more pernicious examples of philosophical foolishness to come out of the American Catholic church in recent decades.

[MCModerator]

Comments deleted for use of profanity and obscene references.

Persistent violators will have all their comments deleted and be banned from the site.

Apologies for inadvertently deleting one legitimate comment by another person while cleaning up the site.